STUDY ON THE EVOLUTION MECHANISMS OF THE

NETWORK PUBLIC OPINION

Honglu Liu and Zhihong Tian

Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing, China

Keywords: Network public opinion, Public opinion evolution, Formation mechanism.

Abstract: Research on the formation and evolution mechanisms of network public opinion has become a very

meaningful field. Network public opinion and traditional public opinion have some similarities, but network

public opinion also has its own independent "will" and evolution which are rooted in its technical specificity.

Based on the life cycle theory, we analyze the formation path of network public opinion, and discuss its

formation mechanism. After that, we analyze the evolution mechanisms of network public opinion,

including the evolution direction mechanism of topics and mutation mechanism of network public opinion.

1 INTRODUCTION

At present, people express their views and exchange

ideas through the network, and the network media is

increasingly becoming an important social

phenomenon in China. Research on the formation

and evolution mechanisms of network public

opinion has become a very meaningful field. From a

technical perspective, the ways of human

communication are five: spoken communication,

written communication, print communication,

electronic communication and network

communication. Especially because of the network

communication, the human society has entered the

"network free communication era" from the

"original free communication era" and "gatekeeper

communication". The main features of the

communication technology are as follows: digital

transmission, network structure, multimedia

communication, interactive communication, multi

communication and global communication, and so

on. Characteristics of the interpersonal

communication are based on the technical features

of the communication. The characteristics are free,

equal, interactive, real-time, anonymous, and so on.

These features lead directly to the formation and

evolution mechanisms which are different from

network media and traditional media. Therefore,

when we are studying the network public opinion, it

is necessary to inherit the experience in the field of

traditional communication, and analyze carefully

new changes which are brought by new technologies

and new models.

2 THE FORMATION

MECHANISM OF NETWORK

PUBLIC OPINION

Public opinion is the common view of people on

recent incidents and social issues. Network public

opinion can be simply understood as the common

opinion of groups on a particular event on the

Internet. Network public opinion includes two parts.

The first one is "network news media" which is the

tendency of public opinion in the network news

media. The second one is "netizens’ views of public

opinion" which can be presented at the platform

BBS, blog, a variety of websites and online

communities.

The prerequisites for the formation of network

public opinion consist of two factors: the emergence

and the survival of topics. There are very flexible

ways for the emergence of topics, including the

original post and paste post. The original post is

published to reflect the social phenomenon or event

by forum members. However, for various reasons,

the first original post might be ignored or drowned

in the other competitive issues. Some popular topics

are rewritten, enrich, modify and recommend by

other forum users which may be called a secondary

or even multi-level communication process. A paste

444

Liu H. and Tian Z..

STUDY ON THE EVOLUTION MECHANISMS OF THE NETWORK PUBLIC OPINION.

DOI: 10.5220/0003594504440448

In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (EIT-2011), pages 444-448

ISBN: 978-989-8425-55-3

 2011 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

post generally includes an event or social

phenomenon from other original post or online news

reports. In such posts, the authors often express their

attitudes and emotions.

The survival of topics means that the relative

event is attended by people. In order to be attended

continually, the topic must accumulate sufficient

posts. We can view the issues as fire, and the

survival of the fire needs combustion-supporting

agent. In practice, because there are too many posts

on the forum, the vast majority of posts become

so-called "sinking the posts ".The fire extinguishes

after burning for a short time. The fire that may

sweep through the whole network is very little.

The life cycle of network public opinion

generally includes three stages-incubation period,

active period and decay period, which is shown in

Table 1 and Figure 1. When a large-scale discussion

of an event of individuals or groups formats, the

incubation period is over. The life cycle enters active

phase, which also marks that the public opinion will

gradually form in the specific environment.

Table 1: The life cycle of network public opinion.

The life cycle Status

Incubation period Attention slowly increases, the views

slowly gather

Active period Attention sharply increases,

All kinds of opinions emerge

After evolution, the mainstream opinion

has formatted

Decay period Attention reduces

Figure 1: The life cycle of network public opinion.

The formation path of network public opinion

passes through three phases—individual expression,

the collision of community views and formation of

the network public opinion, which is shown in

Figure 2. When topics appear and constant attention

of the individuals and the comments and attitudes

gradually accumulate in frequent interaction, one or

more opinion leaders. Several camps representing

different views emerge. There is polarization in the

camps. When the camp's size reaches a certain level,

it can be said that a network public opinion has

formed. We can see that, in the formation of network

public opinion, the opinion leaders, group pressure

and group polarization play very important roles.

Figure 2: The formation path of network public opinion.

2.1 The Mechanism of "Opinion

Leaders"

In the communication, the persons who are active in

the interpersonal communication networks, who

often provide information, opinions or suggestions

for others, and influent others are known as the

"opinion leaders ". In the traditional media era, mass

media takes of (or monopolies) the role of "opinion

leader". They guide and control the activities of

public opinion. In the Internet Age, due to the digital

communication network and star network

communication, and other special communication

technology, there is more freedom, equality and

interaction in network communication. Any Internet

users could become "opinion leaders ".

Internet opinion leaders emerge gradually from

participants in the process of exchange of views.

The basic properties of Internet opinion leaders are

the frequency of the debate, ability of debate, and

self-adhere.

2.2 The Role of Network Group

Pressure

There is a lot of previous research on how does

groups pressure influent on mood and attitude. In

1972, in the study of the relationship between public

opinion and mass communication, the German

scholar Neumann proposed a "spiral of silence"

STUDY ON THE EVOLUTION MECHANISMS OF THE NETWORK PUBLIC OPINION

445

hypothesis. She believes that the strength of public

opinion is from the nature of our society, from

draconian laws for the prohibited views and

behaviors, and from the individual fear of isolation

from others. People express favor when the voice of

favor is rising, and are silent when the voice is

falling.

Group norms can lead to the generation of group

pressure, thereby change the direction of network

public opinions. Group norms refer to considered

behavior expectations in specific group activities for

members, which is a standardized concept

established by a group. In Internet, there are also

norms to follow by net groups. These specifications

and guidelines have invisible binding for members

of groups. Only complying with group norms,

people can communicate smoothly with each other,

and people can be accepted and recognized.

Otherwise, people may be suppressed, marginalized

or even expulsed. Appropriate normative guidelines

can influence and control members, and can

effectively change their attitudes.

2.3 Group Polarization Mechanism

In 1961, the earliest group polarization is proposed

by Stoner who is from MIT. Through empirical

researches, he discovered as follows: In the group

decision-making situations, opinions or decisions of

individuals, are often influenced by inter-group

discussion, and consistent results produce which are

usually more adventure than the earlier ones of

individual. Stoner calls it risk shift. Risk shift was

eventually called group polarization by other

scholars, because they found that after a group

discussion the views or a decision of individuals

sometimes tend to one end of adventure, and in

some cases tend to the conservative end. Therefore,

group polarization is defined as: at the beginning,

there has been some bias of views in the team. After

discussion, views continue to move toward the

direction of bias, and finally an extreme view

format.

The phenomenon of group polarization is more

vulnerable for network public opinion. Internet users

who have the same interests will form virtual groups

on the network, and will have a strong group identity,

so it is prone to the polarization of views. Compared

to the face to face groups, the polarization of

network groups are more pronounced.

The factors that promote group polarization of

network public opinion include a number of aspects,

both the direct stimulation of public events, but also

the filtering effect of network media, but also from

the nature of coherence within groups. The process

of group polarization is shown as figure 3.

Figure 3: The process of group polarization.

1) Event-driven. In essence, events are the basis

and momentum of group polarization of network

public opinion.

2) Internet Filtering. Compared with the real world,

the network provides a systematic filtering natural

environment of information, which makes the

network easy to form homogeneous members within

groups and heterogeneity members intergroup. The

network Helps and strengthens the gathering of

people who have similar interests but are at different

place. Meanwhile, the information on the network is

unlimited, but the information accepted by users is

limited. Internet users have to choose the

information that is valuable and interesting for them.

The network technologies, such as hyperlinks, help

them filter their seen, read and hear things, and

enhance the select ability of information, so they can

selectively access and continually strengthen the

same information. Therefore, the seemingly

personalized information filtering eventually leads

to a "narrowing of information". More and more

Internet users can only hear their own echo, and the

network interaction becomes a "whispering gallery".

The speed of polarization of network public opinion

greatly accelerates.

3) Group Collaboration. The nature and

characteristics of network groups determine the

emergence of group polarization of network public

opinion. The research on social psychology shows

as follows: because of the role of mechanisms in the

collective unconscious, when individuals access to

groups, their psychology will produce a change of

which can not help but lose self-consciousness.

Individuals’ personalities are under varying degrees

of repression, so, even without any external

compulsion, individuals will instead their own

spirits of the groups’ spirits.

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3 THE EVOLUTION

MECHANISM OF NETWORK

PUBLIC OPINION

3.1 The Evolution Direction

Mechanism of Topics and the

Change of Network Public Opinion

Direction

An original topic may be just a post or a news report.

While the attention is increasing to the topic, the

topic will show as a collection concluding series of

news reports, website reviews, forum posts, blog

and others. This change may be due to the

emergence of new developments of the events

discussed or the addition of new ideas. At this time,

the topic will change and sub-topics and new issues

center will format. Because of the lack of network

communicators, network public opinion may move

in any one direction in the dissemination process,

which led to new topics that are even unrelated with

the original public opinion. There are two situations

about this change. First, with the development of

events, the concerns of public opinion are changing.

Second, only for an event, the network public

opinion disperses from the point to the surface. The

evolution of topics and the evolution of network

public opinion are complementary and inseparable

processes.

Once the issue survives, the subsequent

development will depend on a number of factors and

balances. On the one hand, the characteristics of

turbulence are from the publicity and release of

Internet users. On the other hand, when the topic

survive and become the "Climate "of public opinion

that is attended by many users and even mass media,

social ethics and even laws and regulations will be

involved in the process, and become important

constraint factors of network public opinion.

Since then, the forum posts that reflect the

reaction to the events and practices of the relevant

people, including users and the media are

significantly more and more. This phenomenon

reflects that the network of the forum itself is not a

closed system, and it connects with social system

and the Internet. On the other hand, the phenomenon

reflects that the forum itself has a self-purification

mechanism or "quasi-life body function". In other

words, whether the pressure is from the outside or

inside, in a relatively mature, rational forum space,

with the event gradually reflecting actual situation,

people's views and comments on the event will

become objective, fair and rational. The mechanism

of topics evolution direction and the change of

network public opinion direction are shown as figure

Figure 4: The mechanism of topics evolution direction and

the change of network public opinion direction.

3.2 Mutation Mechanism of Network

Public Opinion

Mutation of network public opinion of public crisis

is a system evolution. Specifically, the basic

mutation modes in the dissemination of network

public opinion are three types: assimilation, that is,

Internet users interpret and disseminate information

of events using their knowledge and experience;

alienation, that is, understanding of the information

appears different versions; simplification, that is, a

lot of details which are helpful for understanding the

truth are omitted.

In the network environment, the modes of

dissemination of information are different from the

common "one on one" or "one to many" in real life,

but "many to many" or "mesh" form. Therefore,

taking into account the different interests of the

communication actors, the network public opinion

will assimilate and alienate which is an inevitable

situation. These variations may include disaster

panic, political rumors, and economic profit and so

on.

Disaster panic is common in panic and public

health events. As the incident instantly destroys the

life and production order, people are shrouded by a

sudden and inexplicable fear, and they will

intentionally or unintentionally disseminate

information of panic. In fact, Internet users are

expressing moods or attitudes in the transmission of

information, which is a kind of subconscious release.

As a result of this kind of subconscious, the

composition of event information is continually

changing. In the development process of the public

opinion, users will forward their own explanation to

the fuzzy part of the event information which leads

to enhance the variance of the information.

Thus, the network public opinion and the

interests of the participators of dissemination have

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447

closely relationship. The power of mutation is the

different interests of different Internet participators.

These differences led to mutation or twist of the

event information and make network public opinion

deviate from the truth.

4 CONCLUSIONS

Network public opinion and traditional public

opinion have some similarities, but network public

opinion also has its own independent "will" and

evolution which are rooted in its technical specificity.

In this paper, based on the life cycle theory, we

analyze the formation path of network public

opinion, and then, we discuss its formation

mechanism. After that, we study the evolution

mechanisms of network public opinion, including

the evolution direction mechanism of topics and

mutation mechanism of network public opinion.

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